


He Gave Her the Moon

by InterstellarVagabond



Series: Raising Hell [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Flying, Gen, Illness, dad crowley, hurt with the sparest of comforts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 13:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20258923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: He looked up through the ceiling, face contorting in a snarl as he addressed his question to the right ears. "Was this supposed to happen?"He tucked her into bed, and sat down on the floor with his back up against it.Punish me, not her, he thought. What's she got to do with any of it? Or is that the problem? Some random human isn't good enough for you to care about? You're supposed to care about all of them, and even then there's no random there's no unimportant. No one is unimportant, everyone means something to someone no matter who they are and if you made it that way then you're crueler than I thought. What a sick joke.





	He Gave Her the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> real sad hours folks
> 
> this will make more sense if you read at least one of the first two parts in the series!

They left through the window for her last flight.

Normally, Crowley would tell her to hold on tight, but her grip had grown weaker and his stronger.

"Tell me if it gets too cold," he said instead, and she nodded vaguely. He didn't know if she'd really heard him or not.

Taking care not to slip as he stepped out onto the sloped roof, Crowley spread his wings and felt the wind catch them. He toed the edge of roof where empty air threatened to swallow him up like the maw of some great beast.

Phoebe didn't so much as shiver in his arms, and she was much too light. The wind caught her hair the way it had Crowley's wings, chestnut brown curls dancing a moment and revealing a sallow face.

Unbidden, his mind pulled up a memory of a night just like this only a few months ago. They'd just returned from a flight and were sitting on the roof together when the wind picked up a stray feather. She'd caught it and braided it into her hair with a laugh, and he'd rolled his eyes and told her that theft was barely a sin these days. She'd have to try harder.

"Alright, ready?" He asked. 

She didn't answer, he didn't expect her to.

He took off gently, letting his wings do the hard work so they wouldn't be tossed about at the mercy of the wind. 

There is a feeling the dying have, a sort of limp half emptiness that empties the living the longer they hold onto the dying. It's an emptiness that craves more, demands more, and pulls it from whoever it can. The emptiness makes you question, makes you look at the details of the body and wonder "are those still his hands? Still the curve of her lips? Are they still watching me through those mirror-blank eyes or is it already over before their heart has stopped beating?"

It's like when a fire has just been put out, and you know there could be embers still burning under the ruined, blackened logs, but you can't quite see them. Can't quite confirm they're still there.

Crowley wondered if Phoebe still burned, if any ember of her still remained in this sickly body. He hadn't heard her voice in some time, but he couldn't let himself say it was over yet.

So the flight. The last flight though he wouldn't call it that aloud. She loved flying, always wished she had wings of her own. 

_ "Humans are so boring," she pouted. "Can't you teach me any magic?" _

_ "Do I look like a witch to you?" Crowley asked. "I'll send you to a coven when you're eighteen, how about that?" _

_ "Promise?" She asked, stars in her eyes. He'd been joking but now he had to go and find a respectable coven didn't he? _

"Look, there's one of mine," he said, extending the tip of his wing towards the first star to show itself tonight. "Still want to visit someday?"

_ "I bet we could find a way," she said, peering through the telescope. _

_ "In a few hundred years, sure," he answered, forgetting himself. _

_ "No, it has to be sooner than that." _

_ "Humanity's barely got the hang of living on Earth, how are they gonna get to the moon in the next few years?" He laughed, but she didn't. She pulled away from the telescope and gave him a furious look, before stomping down the hill. _

_ "Wha… hey!" He ran after her. "Where are you going?" _

_ "Home! On Earth! Here!" She shouted. _

_ "What's wrong with you?" He huffed. _

_ "Everything!" She said, and now he noticed the tears in her eyes. "I won't be here in hundreds of years! I won't get to go see the moon or any of your stars, I won't get to go anywhere or do anything, and you will! I'm going to die and you'll go to the moon without me!" _

_ Crowley froze, heart plummeting. The tears in Phoebe's eyes fell faster, and she wiped them away with balled up fists and tried to hold in the sobs. _

_ "Sweetheart, I…" he started, but then he realized he didn't know what to say. She was still glaring daggers at him even as she cried, and he deserved it, he knew he did. He opened his arms, an offer. She sniffled, and practically fell against his chest accepting that offer.  _

_ He held her tight, not knowing what words would make this right. He was supposed to be stronger and smarter than her, not to be better but just so she didn't have to be scared of anything, because he could and would handle it. But he was scared, and if he was scared then she'd be terrified. _

_ "I… won't go without you," he said.  _

_ She shook her head against his shoulder.  _

_ "Liar." _

_ "I won't!" He pulled back and held her shoulders in his hands. He didn't notice it then, how her shoulders had grown sharp and thin from the illness neither of them had yet noticed. "The moon's off limits unless we go together, promise." _

About 142 years later humanity walked on the moon for the first time, and a demon got drunk alone in his flat. 

Right now the demon in question was still flying, low enough to scrape chimneys out of fear for his passenger. He wanted to scrape the stars instead, let her reach out and pluck them from the sky as easily as he had placed them there.

He turned back for home, begging silently he'd hear one last: "already? Just five more minutes?"

He forget to tuck his wings away when he stepped back through the window, so they caught painfully on the sides, and that small pain was the straw that broke the camel's back and made him his with frustration as tears sprung to his eyes. He blinked them away, banished his wings, and walked back over to the bed.

Physically, it was easy to lay her back gently down.

In reality it was so much harder to let her go, so he stood there too long holding her and watching her sides move in and out with breath. 

"... I love you," he said, voice ragged. "I have loved you so much, and that wasn't part of the plan… or… or was it? Part of the bigger plan, the ineffable plan. Was this supposed to happen?"

He looked up through the ceiling, face contorting in a snarl as he addressed his question to the right ears. " _ Was this supposed to happen?" _

He tucked her into bed, and sat down on the floor with his back up against it. 

_ Punish me, not her,  _ he thought.  _ What's she got to do with any of it? Or is that the problem? Some random human isn't good enough for you to care about? You're supposed to care about all of them, and even then there's no random there's no unimportant. No one is unimportant, everyone means something to someone no matter who they are and if you made it that way then you're crueler than I thought. What a sick joke. _

He heard a murmur from the bed and was on his feet immediately. She was awake again, eyes open and unseeing.

He sighed, resting a hand on her forehead. He'd seen Aziraphale give people dreams before, fill their heads with nice things that had them smiling as they awoke. He didn't have much practice in that field himself, but it wasn't beyond his power. At the end of the day the only difference between an angel and a demon is whether or not their home reeked of sulphur. 

He closed his eyes and remembered making the stars, weaving them from fire in his fingers. He thought about the moon, and how Earth looked like a painted glass ornament from there. He let the images pass into her mind as she fell back to sleep.

He gave her the moon.


End file.
